The Wolf Within
by Nightwolf553
Summary: After a five year old Naruto is almost beaten to death by a mob of drunken villagers, he is found by a mysterious ninja called Ookami Ryuu. He adopts Naruto and takes him away from Konoha to train him. How will Naruto's life turn out now?
1. Awakening the wolf!

This is my first FanFic, I hope that you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I do own any original characters and techniques that I have used in my story.

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while, I've been having lots of problems with this fic so I'm going to re-write the chapters one at a time, adding in more details as I go. Tell me what you think...

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Awakening the wolf!

It was the dead of night, the moon was full and the stars were out over Konoha. The streets were full of people; late night drinkers, lonely bachelors looking for a brothel and, down one almost empty street, there was a young five year old boy running for his life. The boy's name was Uzumaki Naruto, and he was being chased because he was the unwilling container of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. The nine tailed fox.

Naruto spared a second to look over his shoulder at his pursuers and then he immediately picked up the pace as the mob of drunks got closer and closer. If he could just make it back to his apartment he would be safe, for now…

Naruto wasn't stupid by any means, he knew what he carried. After being called a demon brat for as long as he remembered, it wasn't hard to figure it out. He knew he wasn't a demon. After all, demons don't feel pain or sadness and he always felt sad after the pain that he received from his regular beatings, courtesy of the villagers. Once he found out about the Kyuubi attack on his birthday he was able to put the pieces together. He hated that the villagers could not see that it was a five year old boy, not the Kyuubi, that they were hurting.

Naruto was tired, too tired to make it to safety. He may have had amazing stamina for his age, but he was still only five. Naruto knew that he had to avoid the mob, to lose them as he ran through the streets. He dashed around a corner to his left only to find that he had run straight into a dead end alley.

Naruto felt the adrenalin leave his system as he gave into his fear and turned to face the villagers. Knowing that he was about to receive the beating of his life.

(Time skip: 1 hour later.)

A cloaked and hooded man, accompanied by a silver wolf, walked past an alley way. The wolf stopped and sniffed the air. The man, noticing that the wolf was no longer next to him turned and spoke to it, "What is it Silverfang? What do you smell?" The wolf began to growl.

The man seemed to sniff the air, "Blood, lots of it! Coming from that alley… Silverfang guide me." The wolf seemed to nod in understanding. Silverfang turned back towards the alley and followed the scent of blood to its source, which looked like it was a pile of bin bags. The man followed Silverfang closely and when they reached the pile of bags, he noticed the pool of blood that surrounded it.

The man looked closely at the bags, and he spotted a patch of blood stained blond hair. Silverfang dragged some of the bags off of the pile, which revealed the body of a young boy.

The man quickly leaned towards the boy and checked for a pulse, although he did not expect to find one… But he did, the boy's pulse was very weak, but it was there. The man efficiently and gently lifted the boy out of the rubbish pile and lay him down in a space so that he could try to heal him. The man's hands glowed green as he ran his hands over the little boy's body, healing him.

The boy's wounds began to vanish and when his body was patched up the man performed another technique to scan the boy's body to check for any internal injuries. The man cancelled the technique in shock, the shear amount of internal injuries that this child had. 'Who could have done this to a five year old!? I don't know any healing techniques that could help him… I'm amazed he's still alive at all!'

The boy's eyes flickered open; the first emotion that his eyes showed was fear. The man spoke quickly knowing that if the boy panicked it could cause even more damage to him. "Hey, don't worry. My name's Ryuu, Ookami Ryuu. I'm trying to help you." The boy seemed to calm down slightly, "So what's your name?"

The boy seemed to have difficulty speaking, but he managed to get out two words, "Uzumaki Naruto."

Ryuu nodded, "Okay Naruto, you've been really badly hurt and I'm doing my best to heal you, so just bare with me. OK?"

"Why? Why are you helping me? Why don't you hate me?!" Ryuu looked down at Naruto with pity in his eyes.

"I don't judge people for the burdens they carry. You do know what is inside you, don't you?" Naruto nodded, "That does not make you a demon, Naruto. You are a five year old boy who deserves to be treated like a hero." Tears came to Naruto's eyes, tears of gratitude flowed down his cheeks. Ryuu looked Naruto in the eye and sighed. "Naruto, I'm leaving Konoha for seven years to search for my family. I'm leaving tonight, and I was wondering if you would come with me."

Naruto's eyes widened, "Really? Could I?" As Naruto's excitement became larger he began to cough up blood.

"Take it easy Naruto, relax. You're still not fully healed. If you really want to come with me then there is a choice that you have to make. As far as I know, most, if not all, of my family is dead. I would like to adopt you, using a clan jutsu, and then train you so that, when we return, you will be able to take care of yourself. You won't ever have to endure a beating from the villagers again."

"So are you saying that you'll train me to be a ninja? And adopt me? But why? Why would you do that, for me?" Naruto just didn't understand why Ryuu was being so kind to him.

"We are both alone in the world, Naruto. When I die my techniques will disappear, I need someone to pass them on to, and I can't think of anyone else that I would rather have as a member of my clan. So, what do you say?"

Naruto seemed to think very seriously about Ryuu's offer. "I do want to come with you and I don't want to be alone anymore. I accept your offers, all of them. When we get back, I'm gonna prove that I'm not a demon. The entire village will see that my name is Naruto, not Kyuubi. I'll protect them all as their Hokage!"

Ryuu grinned, "I'll be honoured that a Hokage came from my clan! Before I can adopt you, I have to introduce you to someone. Silverfang come and say hello." Naruto got the shock of his life as a silver wolf seemed to appear out of nowhere, "Naruto this is Silverfang, my inner wolf."

Naruto raised his hand to stroke Silverfang's head, but he stopped and looked at Ryuu for approval. Ryuu nodded and Naruto petted Silverfang's head. "When I adopt you, the technique that I will use will draw out your inner wolf so that he will walk beside you, as Silverfang walks beside me. Your inner wolf is a part of you, so you will be able to hear his thoughts and converse with him, like you were talking to another person. He will tell you his name when the ritual is complete."

Naruto nodded and his eyes glinted in anticipation. Ryuu began to run through a string of hand signs and when he finished his hands were surrounded by a pure white light. He placed both of his hands on Naruto's chest and called out the name of the technique, "Ookami Clan Hijutsu: naibu no ookami no umare!" There was a flash of white light, and when it cleared there was a wolf pup lying down next to Naruto.

The wolf pup looked Naruto in the eye, 'My name is Moonfang, and I am your companion forever.'

Naruto's eyes filled with joy, "Moonfang, my name is Ookami Naruto. As long as we're together no one will ever beat us!" Moonfang howled in agreement.

Ryuu laughed, "It looks like you two are going to be perfect partners! But you'll have to get to know each other later. We have to leave now, so that we can gain as big a head start over anyone who may try to find us. Naruto, do you think that you can walk?"

Naruto nodded, "I've always been a fast healer." Ryuu nodded.

"Well then, follow me! We'll get out of here and begin your training as soon as we're relatively safe. Were going to be heading towards Wave country, it's a small place, so it should be the last place that someone will look for us. We'll stay there for around a year and then move on." Naruto nodded and struggled to his feet, he tried to take a step and he almost collapsed again.

Moonfang prodded Naruto's leg with his snout, 'You can do it Naruto, just as long as you never give up.'

Naruto grew steadier on his feet, "Arigato Moonfang, from now on my nindo is to never give up!"

Ryuu smiled, "I'm going to have to carry you for now Naruto, just until we reach the forest." He picked Naruto up bridal style and turned to Silverfang who had approached Moonfang, 'I'll be carrying you too pup, you're not fast enough to get past the gate yet,' Silverfang lowered his head and gently picked Moonfang up in his jaws.

Ryuu and Silverfang moved quickly through Konoha, going from shadow to shadow to hide their presence, until they arrived at the main gate. There were two chunin guarding the gate, Ryuu placed Naruto down before running through a set of handseals, "Ookami Clan Hijutsu: kaori no za yuugao." A small flower started to grow out of the ground in front of the chunin who looked down, the flower let off a beautiful aroma which caused the guards to collapse. Ryuu picked up Naruto again and both he and Silverfang ran through the gates of Konoha and out in to the forest.

"Hey, Ryuu-sensei, what was with that flower? How come those ninja fell down? Will you teach me that technique?"

Ryuu laughed, "That flower is unique because it can only survive in the moonlight, it is very rare but the technique that I used is capable of causing one to grow and release its rare aroma. The aroma has a strong genjutsu effect that only well trained medic ninja or genjutsu masters can dispel. If you really want to learn this technique then you'll have to work on your chakra control, I'll teach it to you when I think that you're ready."

Naruto nodded in understanding, "Ryuu-sensei…"

"Yes Naruto?"

"What's genjutsu? What's chakra control? What happens to the flower when the sun comes up? Does it die? It isn't that good if you can only use it at night…" Naruto seemed a little disappointed.

Ryuu sighed, his ears were starting to ache, "A genjutsu is an illusion that ninjas use, chakra control helps you do techniques better, yes the flower does die when the sun rises but because strong ninja normally do missions during the night the technique is very useful and you have to be strong to use the technique to its maximum potential."

Naruto thought about what Ryuu had said before launching into some more questions, "Does the flower only smell if you use the technique? How come? What's maximum potential mean? When are we stopping for the night? I'm tired!"

Ryuu was struggling to keep his cool, but he wasn't an elite ninja for nothing. He had perfect control over his emotions, "No it gives off an aroma naturally as well, but only during the night of a full moon when the flower is at its strongest. Maximum potential is when something is done in the best way that it can be done in. We'll stop soon, but I want to put some more distance between us and Konoha first."

"Sensei…Why is the flower stronger when the moon is full? How do you get better at chakra control? Haven't we got away from Konoha? Why can't we stop now?"

Ryuu's eyebrows started to twitch, 'Calm down, remember he's only five years old, calm!' Ryuu repeated those words through his head as he slowly regained his sanity; which was made a lot harder when he heard Silverfang laughing out loud through their mental link. "Because the genjutsu caused by the flower is so strong it needs a lot of chakra to release its aroma, the flower gets chakra from the moon so the fuller the moon is the stronger the flower becomes and the more likely it is to release its aroma. We'll talk about your training schedule later once we've stopped and yes we have got out of Konoha but it will not be long before someone finds those two ninja and then when someone finds out that you're missing the Hokage will put two and two together and then he will send ninja after us. So we need to get as far away from Konoha before we stop for the night." Ryuu sensed another question coming from the kid he was carrying and he spoke before Naruo could voice his query, "Naruto, can you wait until we stop before you ask anything else, I need to concentrate on where we are going for now." Ryuu thanked Kami at the silence that followed.

(30 minutes later)

After travelling as far as he could manage Ryuu had found a well hidden cave that would be perfect for a place to stay the night before moving on in the morning, "So Naruto, what did you want to ask me?"

"What's chakra Ryuu-sensei?"

Both Ryuu and Silverfang face dropped and Moonfang sweat dropped. Ryuu recovered fast, "Don't you know anything about being a ninja?"

"Nope!" Naruto said with a massive grin.

Ryuu just stared at him with his mouth open for almost five minutes before snapping out of his shock, "Fine, then I'll start at the beginning…"

It was going to be a loooong night!

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**Jutsu Library**

**Ookami Clan Hijutsu: naibu no ookami no umare**: Wolf Clan Secret Technique: Birth of the Inner Wolf

This technique is used to make a person's inner wolf appear, anyone that has this technique used on them automatically becomes a member of the Ookami Clan.

**Ookami Clan Hijutsu: kaori no za yuugao: **Wolf Clan Secret Technique: Aroma of the Moonflower

This technique allows the user to summon a rare and beautiful flower that can only live under moonlight, and causes it to release an equally beautiful scent that casts a genjutsu over anyone who inhales it (only usable at night).

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I hope that you like this chapter, please review and let me know how you think it went!


	2. Return of the Wolf

Sorry that I took so long to update, I know it's not the longest of chapters, but I wanted to put something up. The next chapter will be longer, and I hope it will come faster as well. There's a few things that I need your opinions on, first, what team? Which Sensei? Second, any pairings? I have to warn you that if there are any pairings they will not be a major part of the story line. If you have any jutsu that you wouldn't mind me using then I would appreciate them. Should the Kyuubi's chakra have any effect on Naruto's inner wolf, Moonfang? Should I do the Wave ark or not?

I'd be grateful for your opinions, enjoy the chapter.

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**Return of the Wolf**

Two ninja wearing hooded black cloaks had set up camp in the forest surrounding Konoha. "I wonder if anyone will recognise me…It has been seven years. I can't wait to see the look on old man Hokage's face."

"Calm yourself Naruto, you know that the villagers will not welcome your return. You will have to mask your emotions while you are in the village."

"Hai, Ryuu-Sensei, I know, I will not let this village get to me. I will prove to them that they are wrong." Ryuu smiled and nodded.

Two wolves entered the fire light; they each carried a rabbit in their jaws. They dropped the rabbits into Naruto's lap and then they waited expectantly. "Thank you, Silverfang, and Moonfang. Go ahead and hunt for yourselves now." The wolves both seemed to nod and disappear into the forest, while Naruto began to prepare the rabbits. "So, Naruto, are you sure that you really want to go back?"

Naruto stared into the fire, "If I don't face the village now, I'll never be able to. I owe it to the Hokage to try." Ryuu nodded, "we enter the village tomorrow."

(Time skip: next day)

"I can see the gates Sensei! I'm almost home…" Naruto allowed himself to smile one last time before his face became emotionless.

The three guards on the gate soon noticed Naruto, Ryuu and their wolves, and readied themselves for a possible fight, "Who are you and what is your business in Konoha?"

Ryuu stepped forward, "My name is Ookami Ryuu and this is my son, we are the last two members of the Ookami clan. We have come to join Konoha as ninja and would like to be taken to your Hokage."

The guards nodded, "You'll have to hand over all of your weapons before we take you to the Hokage, and I'll also need your word that you will keep those wolves under control. Do we have an agreement?" Both Ryuu and Naruto nodded and handed over their kunai pouches and each of them handed over a katana and two hunting knives. One of the guards left the gate to inform the Hokage of his visitors, while the one of the others motioned to follow him. Naruto and Ryuu followed by their wolves entered Konoha.

Curious glances followed them through the streets; heads turned and watched the group as they passed. Their curiosity turned to anger as they saw Naruto's face, Naruto, however, kept a cold exterior the whole way to the Hokage Tower.

The secretary looked up as they walked in to the tower, "The Hokage is expecting you; you may go in now." The guard took them through some double doors and into an office. The Hokage looked up from his paper work, "Ryuu-san I presume?"

Ryuu nodded, "Hai, Hokage-sama." The Hokage looked at Naruto and a flicker of recognition passed over his face before he turned back to the guard, "You may leave now, thank you very much for bringing Ryuu-san and his son here." The guard bowed and left.

The Hokage looked at Naruto, "It's good to see you again Naruto. I got the messages that you sent me during the past seven years. If what you said in those letters was true, then you are at least a high Chunin level if not low Jonin level now. But I would still like to send you to the academy so that when you graduate you will be put on a team with people your own age. I believe that it is what would be best for you in the long run."

Naruto nodded, "I thought that this would be the case, Hokage-sama. I am more than willing to attend the academy."

"Very well, so all that remains is to assign you a rank Ryuu-san." The Hokage looked thoughtful, "I am willing to instate you as an assistant instructor to a genin team so that I can gauge your level."

"Hai, Hokage-sama, what about living arrangements?"

The Hokage sighed, "That has yet to be dealt with, Naruto's old apartment is an option while we arrange for somewhere more permanent…."

Ryuu interrupted the Hokage, "In all due respect Hokage-sama, I intend to see the revival of my clan, therefore I will need a large area of land so that I can build a compound that fits the needs that my clan will have when we get back up on our feet. Both Naruto and I know how to make Kage Bunshin, we could have a basic compound set up within three days, with the right materials of course. Naruto's old apartment will be sufficient for now." The Hokage nodded, "If that is all now Hokage-sama, then we will take our leave. I assume that Naruto will not start at the academy until tomorrow?"

The Hokage nodded, "I will send word to the academy teachers to expect Naruto at the academy tomorrow morning," the Hokage opened a drawer and tossed a leaf forehead protector to Ryuu. "You will not take the position of assistant instructor until the new batch of academy students graduate in 6 months time, which should give me enough time to find an appropriate piece of land for you to build your new home on, and for you to build suitable living accommodation on that land. Once the land has been found materials will be provided for you, if you have any particular needs in this department then make a list for me and I will see that you receive everything that you need." Ryuu bowed in gratitude, "Your weapons are with my secretary and will be retuned to you on your way out. I am glad that you're back Naruto."

Both Naruto and Ryuu bowed again, before they left. The Hokage watched as they left his office, then he sighed and turned back to his paperwork.

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Should I write about the training? If so then should I use flashbacks or should I write a separate mini fic?

So, what did you think? Don't forget to review! Please, please, please!


	3. Chapter 3a: Memories

Hi, I'm sorry that it took so long for me to update and I know that this is the shortest chapter yet (actually it's only half of it, but I haven't written the other half yet), but I hope that you like it. I don't really know how long it will take me to update again so please be patient. To those people who have reviewed my story, thank you very much. I'm glad that you like it.

**TwinTrouble (Twin 2) **Thanks for telling me your opinions in detail, I would be very grateful if you would continue to do so.

**Sealed-Dragon** Thanks for the jutsu, I would love to use that in my story (although I don't know when) if that's ok with you?

I would also like to thank **dragoon-zerox **for helping me to think about the things that may happen in the future of this story, I may not use all of the ideas that you gave me though, after all I want this story to be unique because of my ideas as well, not just because of someone else's.

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**Memories**

Naruto was up bright and early the next day. He proceeded to complete his morning workout, which consisted of: 100 push-ups and sit-ups, followed by an advanced chakra control exercise (balancing sharp, weighted kunai point down on his finger tips, with only his chakra preventing him from losing some fingers) and he always ended with some light meditation.

Afterwards he made himself and Moonfang breakfast, he would have made something for his sensei and Silverfang but they were nowhere to be found. Naruto sighed, it was always like this; his sensei either didn't sleep or got up at a ridiculous time because he was never around in the morning.

Naruto checked his clock…he still had several hours before he had to be at the academy and he suddenly had a strange longing to see his home again.

About an hour later he arrived at the park, the place where he always went so that he could watch the other kids playing and wish that he could join in, he spotted the empty swings the place where he always sat hoping that one day someone would speak to him.

Naruto still remembered the day that his wish came true…

(The past stays with us for the rest of our lives.)

It had been a bright and sunny day and the park was full of laughing children playing together and having fun. But there was one boy who was not having fun, one boy who was all alone, Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto sat on his swing being ignored by everyone else, the children had already been warned by their parents to stay away from Naruto and they obeyed without question; ignoring his existence as they played their games, unaware that he was watching them, longing to join in their fun even if it was only for a day.

Today was Naruto's lucky day. He was not the only lonely child in the park; there was one other, a young girl by the name of Hyuuga Hinata. Hinata had always had problems with making friends, she was shy by nature and was therefore also mostly ignored; but only for the reason that she wasn't loud enough to make the other children hear her.

It was Hinata that first noticed Naruto, the lonely boy sat on the swings. Someone just like her, someone not good enough to play with the other children, but, maybe they could play together…then neither of them would be lonely anymore.

Naruto could almost sense Hinata approaching him; he looked up and watched the young girl walking over to him. This couldn't be real, right? But she kept on coming, even when Naruto rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

Hinata had almost reached Naruto by then, she could see the disbelief on his face and so she did the only thing that she could think of; she smiled at him, a warm reassuring smile that seemed to wash away Nauto's doubt and leave him with a sense of peace and happiness.

"Hello my name's Hyuuga Hinata, what's yours?" Naruto had to listen hard because the girl was so quiet she was almost whispering.

"Uzumaki Naruto…" Naruto spoke hesitantly because it was normally after the children heard his name that they left him alone again, but Hinata didn't run or leave; her smile just grew.

"I noticed that you were alone Naruto-kun, I don't have any friends either, so I was wondering if you would like to play with me and maybe be my friend?"

"You really want to be my friend?" Naruto still couldn't believe that this was real; he was expecting Hinata to say something like, 'of course not, I can't believe that you fell for it! Why would anyone play with you?', so he was very surprised by the simple 'yes' that he received.

Hinata watched as Naruto's face broke into the nicest smile that she had ever seen, "I would love to play with you Hinata-chan!"

And so the park was filled with happy children playing and having fun, not a single child was unhappy. Two completely different children drawn together by loneliness became the best of friends until the day that Naruto had disappeared…

(It is not wise to dwell on the past; we must all look towards the future.)

Naruto smiled as he remembered that day, the happiest day of his life. He sighed, 'I wonder what Hinata is doing now? I would give anything just to see her again, even if she doesn't recognise me.'

'I'm sure that you will see each other again Naruto and I don't think that she has forgotten. You haven't.'

Naruto looked down and smiled at Moonfang, 'Thanks Moonfang, you always seem to know just what to say to make me feel better.'

Moonfang seemed to smile, 'I'll always be here for you Naruto, I am part of you, just as you are part of me.' Naruto just nodded and sat down on the swing; he lent his head back and stared at the clouds.

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So, what did you think? Please review! And hopefully I'll be able to get the other half of this chapter up very soon. 


	4. Chapter 3b: The Academy

Thank you all for reviewing, I'm glad that you're enjoying my fic. I just want to say that I'm really sorry for how long it has taken me to update, I've had a lot of problems with my CPU and I had to send it back to the shop to get it fixed, so I couldn't work on this chapter until recently. Please let me know if it seems a bit rushed, I just wanted to get this chapter up. For all of the people who are worried about the pairing Hinata is not going to end up with Naruto. The only reason that I wrote the last chapter like I did was to give Naruto a stronger connection with Konoha so that he would have a believable reason to return.

Enjoy the chapter.

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**The Academy**

"Okay class, settle down now," Iruka waited as the last few whispered conversations ended and then he continued, "We will be receiving a new student today, I expect you to treat him with respect and I don't want anyone to spoil his first day at this academy… Is that understood?"

"Hai Iruka-sensei!" was the reply that he received. There was a knock on the door, and Iruka smiled, "This boy is also new to the village, so I expect you all to help him settle in," Iruka walked to the door and opened it. He was faced by a tall blond boy with whisker marks on his cheeks. The boys sapphire blue eyes had cat-like slits and Iruka was sure that he could see fangs just pointing out from under the boy's top lip.

"Welcome to the academy, my name is Umino Iruka and I will be your instructor for the next six months," while Iruka spoke he took the opportunity to study his new pupil, the boy was wearing black combats with extra pockets for ninja tools, a black fishnet vest, black shinobi sandals and a long black trench coat; which he wore open. Around his neck was a wolf tooth necklace, his ragged hair was held out of his eyes by a black strip of cloth and he wore a belt around his waist which held two sheathed hunting knives. There was a kunai holster on both of the boy's thighs and Iruka spotted the handle of a katana over his right shoulder.

The boy bowed, "My name is Ookami Naruto, it's a pleasure to meet you Iruka-sensei," Naruto straightened up, "I presume that the Hokage told you about my companion?" Iruka nodded, "Good, then I would like to introduce you to Moonfang." Naruto took a step to the right to reveal a white wolf that had been standing behind him.

Moonfang walked up to Iruka and sniffed him, before turning back to Naruto, 'This one is stronger than his rank suggests. We would do well to learn from him.'

Naruto nodded, 'Then learn from him we shall!', "Is it ok for us to come in now sensei? I don't want to hold up your lesson any longer."

Iruka smiled, "Sure, come right in."

Once Naruto had introduced himself to the class he was seated next to quiet boy who was wearing sunglasses and a high collared coat that covered the lower half of his face. The boy said that his name was Aburame Shino. There were quite a few people staring at Moonfang, some in amazement, some were frightened and there was one who seemed to be interested; a boy at the back of the room with a small dog on his head.

The class became quiet as Iruka began his first lecture of the day, "Today I'm going to talk about other ninja villages in different countries, starting with Kirigakure. Kiri is the most unstable of the ninja villages; it has been in a state of constant civil war for 20 years." (**1)**

A pink haired girl put her hand up, "How did the war start sensei?"

"Good question Sakura, no one knows for sure. The most popular story is that the Seven Swordsmen, Kiri's elite ninja, attempted to assassinate the Mizukage. The assassination attempt failed and most of the swordsmen fled, however some of them stayed and gathered followers from Kiri's ninja force so that they could challenge and overthrow the Mizukage. This is the most believed story because it was the Mizukage who announced it; however as no one from Konoha was there to confirm it we prefer not to assume that it is the truth just because it came from the Mizukage."

"Why not?" The boy with the dog seemed confused.

"The Mizukage was widely known as a power hungry, paranoid control freak, Kiba. It is entirely possible that the Mizukage was scared of the power that his elite ninja had and decided to frame them so that he could remove them without protest."

Sakura wasn't entirely convinced, "But sensei isn't that just guesswork? The Mizukage actually stated that the Seven Swordsmen tried to kill him, so why shouldn't we believe him? It is a lot more reasonable than a conspiracy against the Seven Swordsmen, isn't it?"

"It is, however our information has been recently updated by a new jonin ninja. It seems that this ninja actually met and talked with a member of the Seven Swordsmen who told him about the conspiracy in the hope that the ninja would help to overthrow the Mizukage. So you see Sakura, there are two sides to every story and without a Konoha ninja actually being there when the 'assasination' took place how can we say which story is true?" This effectively stopped Sakura's argument.

A blond girl raised her hand, "How do you know that you can trust this new jonin?" Moonfang growled at this question.

"How do you know if you can trust the Mizukage? Do you know him?" Naruto spoke in a quiet but dangerous tone.

"No, but…"

"The new jonin is my adoptive father and I was there when he met with Zabuza, the demon of the mist, who is not only an A-rank nukenin, he is also a former member of the Seven Swordsmen. I know that my father wasn't lying."

Sakura snorted, "How do you know that Zabuza wasn't lying? How do you even know that you were speaking to the real Zabuza?"

"I'll answer your second question first; the ability to converse with wolves is part of the bloodline that my father gave to me. It is all but impossible to lie to a wolf and there were two at the meeting with Zabuza, Moonfang was one. The other was my father's wolf Silverfang, it is therefore impossible that Zabuza was lying. As for your first question, because Zabuza is a missing ninja he appears in the bingo book, which is like a ninja encyclopaedia. All c-class and higher missing ninja are automatically placed in the bingo book which is constantly updated to provide ninja with up-to-date information on both missing ninja and ninja from other villages; including what they look like. Zabuza also carries a rather unique sword; this makes it quite easy to identify him."

The whole room was silent as even Iruka was left speechless at Naruto's knowledge, but Iruka was a good teacher and it did not take him long to recover, "Thank you for that information Naruto, I'm sure that everyone has learnt something valuable from you. I'm sure that everyone is curious about your bloodline and how you got it from your father even though he is not related to you by blood, would you mind telling us about that?"

Naruto nodded and stood up, "In some ways my clan's bloodline is similar to the Inuzaka's; it gives my clan the ability to speak to wolves like they can speak to dogs. This means that my clan can fight alongside wolves like partners and even create unique jutsu that can only be used by us. That is however where the similarities end, my clan's bloodline is strange in that it can be passed on to anyone even if they are not born into the clan; this is made possible by a clan technique developed by my father. This technique is strange because not only does it pass on the traits that I described it also creates a wolf from the person's soul; we call this wolf our inner wolf. The inner wolf becomes our main partner, although my clan can partner up with other wild wolves we tend not to, Moonfang is my inner wolf. The advantage of being partnered with an inner wolf is that, because they come from your soul, you can read their thoughts and they can read yours, this gives you the element of surprise against most opponents as you can perform perfect teamwork without spoken commands."

As Naruto finished a bell rang and Iruka, who had sat down during Naruto's explanation, stood up, "Ok everyone, enjoy your break and remember to be back in the classroom in 15 minutes." The class rose and filed out.

On the way out Naruto was approached by the blond haired girl who had questioned his father's reliability, "I'm sorry if I offended you Naruto…"

Naruto grinned showing off his razor-sharp fangs, "Don't worry about it, you didn't know that he was my father. I would have asked the same question if our positions were reversed," the girl smiled in relief, "What's your name? I feel kind of embarrassed that you know mine but I don't know yours."

"My name is Yamanaka Ino, I'm sure that we'll be great friends."

Ino held out her hand and Naruto shook it, "I think that we'll get on just fine Ino. Introduce yourself to Moonfang Ino."

Ino turned to the white wolf, "Erm…hi Moonfang my name's Ino," Ino turned to Naruto, "Can I stroke him?"

"Sure, he likes to be scratched behind his ear." Naruto advised Ino, who began to scratch Moonfang's ear. Moonfang growled in contentment and Ino giggled, "I have to go look for someone Ino, you can come with me if you like."

Ino nodded, "Who are you looking for?"

"Her name's Hyuuga Hinata, she's like a sister to me."

Ino looked puzzled, "But I thought that you came from another village…how could you know Hinata that well?"

"I was born in Konoha and Hinata was my first and only friend here, neither of us had anyone to play with so we played with each other. I never had the chance to say goodbye to her when I left with my father seven years ago."

Ino nodded, "Hinata usually sits under the tall tree by the pond, follow me." Naruto nodded and let Ino lead him to his long lost sister.

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(**1)** (I don't know how long the war has been going on so I'm just making this up.)

I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, please review and tell me what you thought!


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